


Numbers Don't Lie

by ProblemWithTrouble



Series: Pacific Rim [4]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Uprising Who?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 15:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18390977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProblemWithTrouble/pseuds/ProblemWithTrouble
Summary: “You think I’m hot.”Hermann looked at the board and then back at Newt. He started to feel the flush working up his neck and tried to keep his breathing even to calm it. “I think nothing of the sort, the maths shows it plain as day and maths never—”





	Numbers Don't Lie

Hermann was determined to keep working even as Newt continued to blather on about his weekend. The recap of their time apart had been going for nearly twenty minutes and Hermann had stopped verbally protesting five minutes in and instead allowed it to fade into the background. He didn’t have time for this, and Newton didn’t either, he was interrupting his own story to make notes into his voice recorder as he continued his dissection of the newest kaiju bits. 

Over the years that they had shared space Hermann had grown accustomed to Newt’s voice filtering in and out of his conscious thoughts. Not that he would ever admit to it but sometimes he thought he focused better with Newt’s unimportant nonsense in his ear. He missed it when it was gone, though not enough to resort to finding the same comfort in Newt’s atrocious singing. 

“And I get it, I’m not the most attractive person in the world, but the guy didn’t have to be a dick,” Newt said. 

“What?” Hermann almost shouted as his attention was suddenly torn away from his boards. 

“I know right?” Newt’s voice cheered up at having finally gotten Hermann to join the conversation. “Who still uses the word fugly?” 

“I wasn’t protesting at his use of language so much as his inaccurate assessment and your agreement with him.” Hermann started the climb down from his ladder to properly argue with Newton. 

“Oh, come on,” Newton said with a shrug and a gesture at himself. “I’m not exactly winning any beauty pageants.” It was a wonder that Hermann could even talk to other people when it took him twenty words to say ‘you’re not ugly.’ 

“That is only because of imposed beauty standard to glorify men with nothing better to do but workout and prep their own food,” Hermann said and then started to roll another chalkboard out from their small rest area. They kept it clear of Hermann’s official work so that when they had to break their argument down to its barest bones they had somewhere to work out their proofs. “But if a person were to break down your features individually it would obviously show that you are extremely desirable.”

Newton peeled off his gloves and made his way over to sit on the back of the couch and watch Hermann start writing.

“Let’s start with your height,” he said and then he did. 

Hermann spent almost an hour and a half walking Newt through each of his features - height, hair, weight, build, eyes, smile, freckles, face shape, arm to leg length ratio, rhythm of speech - and proved how they were really the ideal for a partner. His only detractors was his hair that never laid flat so would be difficult to control if he needed to attend a formal event with his partner and the pitch of his voice, which was higher than the world average and had a tendency to get scratchy when he yelled. It might have been distracting if Newt were to be a screamer in bed, too close to a fighting cat. 

“I don’t sound like a cat if bed,” Newt argued but Hermann had only been halfway through when he had said that and had hushed him.

When Hermann was done he took one more satisfied look at his writing then turned to actually look at Newt. “You think I’m hot.” 

Hermann looked at the board and then back at Newt. He started to feel the flush working up his neck and tried to keep his breathing even to calm it. “I think nothing of the sort, the maths shows it plain as day and maths never—” 

“Lie. Yeah, but beauty is subjective,” Newt said. He had a look like he was in awe of Hermann, or like he was thinking too quickly to bother making the corresponding expressions. 

“No, it’s not. That’s something advertisers tell us to make those of us who don’t make the cut that we are still worth investing money into."

Newt rolled his eyes. "Admit it, Herms, the evidence doesn't support your theory. People aren't exactly lining up for a piece of Newton Geiszler, PhD to the power of six."

Newt expected him to flush, to finally catch up with what was happening, but Hermann just scoffed and turned away, erasing his work as he spoke. "Most people also don't understand quantum mechanics but that doesn't mean it's not true."

Newt sighed, "Oh, Hermy," and then went back to his side of the lab. 

"Don't call me that." Hermann huffed and went back to his work.

* * *

The next morning Newt was later than usual. It was almost noon by the time he strolled into the lab. Hermann barely looked up from his work but when he did, he couldn’t hide his double take. Anyone else might have looked at him and seen nothing out of the ordinary but Hermann was far too used to his usual attire not to notice the change. Newt was wearing his best jeans, the ones without any stains on them that he wore when Pentecost made him go to meetings. His shirt had been ironed and his tie looked like it had been retied and smoothed out despite the years of abuse that Newt had visited on it. His hair had been corralled into something that might have actually been a style. He was also holding a spiral bound notebook in his hand as he strode in and Hermann knew he was in trouble. 

Newt threw the notebook down on the desk in front of Hermann.

“And what’s this?” Hermann asked.

Newt smiled and sat himself up on the desk. “It’s proof that you’re wrong, as usual.”

Hermann opened the notebook and saw his own equations looking back at him but tweaked so that the result was no longer Newton’s dimensions but Hermann’s own. “What this is,” Hermann started as he stood up with a glare. “is proof that you are incapable of listening in even the slightest capacity.”

Newt looked genuinely surprised at the reaction and for the span of a breath he just stared at Hermann. “I just changed the base assumptions of the ‘average person’ to match me and used your same equations.” 

“Why would you need to change them at all?” Hermann asked, fuming. He had spent months of his off time, little as he had, coming up with those equations. It had been so frustrating before that trying to determine why it was that he had become so obsessed with Newton even after their disastrous first meeting. 

“To prove my point.” Newt slipped off the edge of the table. “That it’s subjective.”

Hermann scoffed. “It’s not subjective, Newton. You’ve purposefully changing the equations to suite your joke.”

“What joke?”

“The joke that through some manipulation of _my_ numbers I am the match for you!” Hermann shouted. 

Newt pointed at the chalkboard that neither of them had cleared from Hermann’s explanation yesterday. “But it’s perfectly serious when _I’m_ the perfect match for you?”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“You know how.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Oh the great Newton Geiszler admits he doesn’t know something. Someone mark the calendar.”

“Don’t avoid the question, Herms. How is it different?”

Hermann rolled his eyes and looked to the ceiling as if it could offer him some answers on how to get his point through this thick skull of his friend. “It is different because I am attracted to you and you are not attracted to me.”

“Yes I am. I stayed up all night doing _math_ just to prove it.”

That brought every thought that was flying through Hermann’s to a screeching halt. It was true. Newton never bothered to do maths outside of what was necessary for his biology. Maths was one step too far for a prank. “You…dinner? Would you like to get dinner?”

Newt’s face lit up. “Yeah, dude. Like a date? Like boyfriends?”

“Must you use that term?”

“Do you prefer partner? Lover? Darling? Sweetheart? Significant other?” 

“I’ve made a mistake.” 

Newt grinned and took a step closer. “No. For once your calculations are right.”

“Kiss me before I change my mind.”

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://problemwithtrouble.tumblr.com)
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> kudos + comments = Love


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